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July 25, 2016

The One Hour Pre-Motivation Strategy

I've written before about the fact that it's easy to make hard decisions for our future selves...but when we arrive at that point, our present self doesn't stick to the plan.

For instance, it's easy to decide right now that we'll get up early and go for a half-hour walk...starting next week. But when next week rolls around and it's raining and we're nice and comfy in our beds, it's easy to postpone that walk.

A DIFFERENT APPROACH TO THE TO-DO LIST

The same applies to making a list of what we're going to do tomorrow, in order of priority. We can identify the task that we should do first even though it's unpleasant or scary. But in the morning we may decide to ease into the day and find that the tough task keeps slipping down to the bottom and then onto tomorrow's list.

A strategy that might help was suggested by a study that showed people found it easier to cut calories when they ordered their food an hour ahead of time. It's similar to the strategy of not going shopping when you're hungry.

One way to apply this to being productive could be to deciding an hour ahead of time which task we're going to do in an hour. It makes it less likely that we'll be unrealistic in our plan for the day, and also less likely that we'll totally avoid the harder actions.

Comments

I've written before about the fact that it's easy to make hard decisions for our future selves...but when we arrive at that point, our present self doesn't stick to the plan.

For instance, it's easy to decide right now that we'll get up early and go for a half-hour walk...starting next week. But when next week rolls around and it's raining and we're nice and comfy in our beds, it's easy to postpone that walk.

A DIFFERENT APPROACH TO THE TO-DO LIST

The same applies to making a list of what we're going to do tomorrow, in order of priority. We can identify the task that we should do first even though it's unpleasant or scary. But in the morning we may decide to ease into the day and find that the tough task keeps slipping down to the bottom and then onto tomorrow's list.

A strategy that might help was suggested by a study that showed people found it easier to cut calories when they ordered their food an hour ahead of time. It's similar to the strategy of not going shopping when you're hungry.

One way to apply this to being productive could be to deciding an hour ahead of time which task we're going to do in an hour. It makes it less likely that we'll be unrealistic in our plan for the day, and also less likely that we'll totally avoid the harder actions.